Barry Lando. [Source: Master Media Speakers]Author and investigative producer Barry Lando later writes that the entire Iraq-Kuwait dispute may have been manipulated to some extent by the UUS, with the meeting between US Ambassador April Glaspie and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein (see July 25, 1990) a centerpiece of the operation. In February 2007, Lando will say, “After Iraq’s war with Iran ended, the Kuwaitis manipulated the world oil price through their production—they greatly increased their oil production, which dropped the world oil price (see May 28-30, 1990 and Mid-1990). That really hurt Iraq, because Saddam was counting on oil revenues to rebuild after the war. He went to the Kuwaitis and he said, look, back off because you’re killing my economy. The Kuwaitis refused to back down. Later it came out that the Kuwaiti’s leaders had been meeting with the CIA exactly to put pressure on Saddam Hussein. [Glaspie] told Saddam Hussein that we will not take any position as far as your border disputes with Kuwait go. Her superior, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly, also testified before Congress a couple of days later (see July 31, 1990). When asked point blank, ‘If Saddam invades Kuwait, do we have any treaty with Kuwait?’ he said, ‘No, we don’t.’” [Buzzflash (.com), 2/23/2007]

US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie delivers a letter written by President Bush to Saddam Hussein. The letter reads in part: “I was pleased to learn of the agreement between Iraq and Kuwait to begin negotiations in Jeddah [Saudi Arabia] to find a peaceful solution to the current tensions between you (see August 1, 1990). The United States and Iraq both have a strong interest in preserving the peace and stability of the Middle East. For this reason, we believe that differences are best resolved by peaceful means and not by threats involving military force or conflict. I also welcome your statement that Iraq desires friendship rather than confrontation with the United States. Let me reassure you, as my ambassador (see July 25, 1990), Senator Dole (see April 12, 1990), and others have done, that my administration continues to desire better relations with Iraq. We will also continue to support our friends in the region with whom we have had long-standing ties. We see no necessary inconsistency between these two objectives. As you know, we still have certain fundamental concerns about certain Iraqi policies and activities, and we will continue to raise these concerns with you in a spirit of friendship and candor.… Both our governments must maintain open channels of communication to avoid misunderstandings and in order to build a more durable foundation for improving our relations.” Positive Tone - According to the later recollections of Glaspie’s deputy, Joseph Wilson, the Iraqi leadership is “startled by the positive tone of the letter.” The letter is overtly conciliatory towards Iraq and its aggression towards Kuwait (see July 22, 1990 and August 2, 1990), and, as then-Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Nizar Hamdun will recall, leaves “the impression that the American desire for good relations with Iraq might override its concerns about Iraqi aggression.” Hamdun believes that the letter “had sent the wrong signal to Saddam by not explicitly warning him against taking any harsh military action, and not threatening harsh retaliation if he did.” Hamdun believes that Hussein “concluded from the positive tone of the letter that the US would not react militarily and that he could survive the political criticism resulting from the aggressive action toward Kuwait.” Letter Influences Saddam's Thinking - Wilson will conclude, “This letter, much more than any other United States statement (see July 25, 1990), appears to have influenced Saddam’s thinking.” Ultimately, Wilson will note, the US’s influence with Hussein is limited at best, and his perceived reasons to annex Kuwait (see May 28-30, 1990 and July 17, 1990) will override any fears of US disapproval. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 101-104]

US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie (see July 25, 1990) leaves the country for long-planned, long deferred home leave. Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson is left in charge of the US Embassy in Baghdad. Many other ambassadors also leave the city, as is customary due to the extremely high seasonal heat in late July and August. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 106]

In the days preceding the Iraq invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990), the two nations’ Arab neighbors urge the US to use caution and moderation in trying to head off the invasion. They fear that overtly harsh tactics will provoke Iraq into the invasion they all wish to avoid. Saddam Hussein is bluffing (see July 25, 1990), several Arab leaders assert, and the problem can be handled with Arab-led diplomacy (see August 1, 1990). The United Arab Emirates (UAE) participates in a quick US-led joint military exercise, which they had requested, but criticize the US for making the exercise public, worried that it might provoke a reaction from Iraq. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 105]

John Kelly. [Source: WGBH-FM]Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly testifies before an open session of the House International Relations Committee, chaired by Middle East expert Lee Hamilton (D-IN). Hamilton asks Kelly if the US has a mutual defense pact with Kuwait, a question to which Hamilton already knows the answer. Kelly answers, “We don’t have any defense treaty with the Gulf States. That’s clear. We support the independence and security of all friendly states in the region. Since the Truman administration, we’ve maintained naval forces in the area because its stability is in our interest. We call for a peaceful solution to all disputes, and we think that the sovereignty of every state in the Gulf must be respected.” Kelly’s words are transmitted to Iraq within minutes of his speaking them. US diplomat Joseph Wilson, stationed in Baghdad, later writes, “Despite the qualifiers that Kelly put into place about America’s preference for peaceful solutions to disputes, the only thing the Iraqi regime heard was that we had no legal obligation or even any mechanism to react to an invasion. That had far more effect than anything [US Ambassador to Iraq] April Glaspie may or may not have said in her meeting with Saddam Hussein (see July 25, 1990). It substantiated that she was in no position to threaten Saddam, nor that if Kuwait was invaded would we bring the B52s over and bomb Iraq back into the Stone Age. There was no legal or political basis before the invasion to make that threat, and Glaspie was never going to so grossly exceed her instructions. She could not in fact have gone any further in her response to Saddam than she had actually gone.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 104-105]

In the first few days of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990 and August 2-4, 1990), Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the highest-ranking US diplomat in Baghdad (see July 31, 1990), takes an aggressive stance in handling the crisis. Wilson realizes that he may not hear anything concrete from Washington for days, if not weeks, and any advice from his superiors in Washington might be either useless or counterproductive. Wilson and his colleagues at the embassy know that securing their building is their first objective. He orders a thorough review of security procedures; the painting over of embassy windows to foil potential sniper attacks; the destruction of most classified files and documents, and the preparation for the remaining files to be destroyed at a moment’s notice; the preparation of evacuation plans; and for nonessential staff to make plans to leave Baghdad as quickly as possible. Wilson and his colleagues are concerned about the number of Americans detained in Kuwait, including a 12-year old California girl who had flown alone into the Kuwait City airport on her way to meet her parents in India; she had been taken into Iraqi custody straight off her airliner. Wilson successfully presses his friend, Iraq Deputy Foreign Minister Nizar Hamdun, to release the girl into his custody; he keeps her busy helping out around the embassy until he can get her on a flight out of Iraq, and will later remember her as “a real trouper.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 112-114]

The day before sending US troops into battle with Iraq (see August 2, 1990, the Bush administration approves the sale of $695,000 in advanced data transmission devices to that country. [Washington Post, 3/11/1991]

Iraq and Kuwait meet to discuss their political differences in a diplomatic session arranged by Egypt’s ruler Hosni Mubarak (see July 25, 1990). According to US diplomat Joseph Wilson, the negotiations are a sham on Iraq’s part. The Iraqi diplomatic delegation is composed of, in Wilson’s words, “formidable thugs with nary a diplomatically inclined bone in their collective bodies. They were enforcers, pure and simple, and the Kuwaitis clearly had miscalculated when they assumed a negotiated settlement could be achieved. Though Mubarak had arranged the negotiations, and Saudi Arabia hosted them, representatives from no third countries are present.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 105]

Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson is in charge of the US Embassy in Baghdad after US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie departed for her twice-delayed annual vacation to the US (see July 31, 1990). At 2:30 a.m., local time, Wilson is awakened by a phone call from Washington. The operator tells him, “Mr. Wilson, I have the White House on the line.” Wilson, assuming he is going to speak directly to the president, finds himself standing at attention, stark naked in the middle of his bedroom. Instead, the line goes dead. (Phone service in Iraq is unreliable at best, and the Iraqis often cut service to the embassy phones.) Wilson calls Sandra Charles, a National Security Council specialist on the Middle East, and Charles tells him that she is receiving reports that the US Embassy in Kuwait City, Kuwait, is being surrounded by hostile Iraqi troops (see August 2, 1990). At 7:30 a.m., Wilson, having gotten dressed, pounds on the door of Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz. The two have what Wilson will later recall as a forceful exchange, and Aziz agrees to restore phone service to the embassy. More pertinently, Wilson tells Aziz that the US is flatly opposed to any military moves against Kuwait. “It seems to me that with your army in Kuwait City and my navy in the Gulf we have an obligation to avoid any escalation of this crisis if we can,” Wilson tells Aziz. A member of the embassy staff later recalls being impressed with Wilson’s political dexterity. “I always knew Joe was bright,” the former staffer recalls, “but he really showed here he could be quick on his feet. That was a pretty smart way to handle the situation.” The meeting with Aziz is the first of many diplomatic efforts Wilson will make over the next few weeks to defuse the situation (see August 2-4, 1990) and protect the Americans in Iraq and Kuwait, whom Wilson fears will be taken hostage by Iraqi forces. [Vanity Fair, 1/2004]

Iraqi tanks poised to roll into Kuwait. [Source: Kristina Greve]Iraq invades Kuwait. In response, the US suspends National Security Directive 26 (see October 2-6, 1989), which established closer ties with Baghdad and mandated $1 billion in agricultural loan guarantees to Iraq. [Los Angeles Times, 2/23/1992] The secretary of defense, Dick Cheney, begins pressing President Bush to go to war with Iraq without securing Congressional approval. His rationale is two-fold: he doesn’t need Congressional authority, and he might not get it if he asks. Cheney moves the Pentagon onto a full war footing, even going so far as to create what author and former White House counsel John Dean calls “his own concocted high-risk plans of battle, which he tried but failed to sell at the White House.” Bush will juggle Cheney’s view with that of House Speaker Tom Foley, who will give the president a document signed by 81 Democratic members who insist that if Bush wants to go to war, he needs the authorization of Congress. Dean will write that Cheney’s arguments “are based on bogus legal and historical arguments that have been made before, but no one has pushed them longer or harder than he has.” [Dean, 2007, pp. 89-91] Bush decides not to follow Cheney’s advice. In 2007, author and reporter Charlie Savage will observe: “By urging Bush to ignore the War Powers Resolution on the eve of the first major overseas ground war since Congress enacted the law, Cheney was attempting to set a powerful precedent. Had Bush taken his advice and survived the political fallout, the Gulf War would have restored [former President] Truman’s claim that as president he had ‘inherent’ powers to send American troops to the Korean War on his own” (see June 30, 1950). [Savage, 2007, pp. 62]

The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 660 condemning Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990 and demanding that Iraq “withdraw immediately and unconditionally all its forces to the positions in which they were located on 1 August 1990.” [United Nations Security Council, 8/2/1990]

The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 678 authorizing “Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait… to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area.” [United Nations, 11/29/1990]

Two days of intense fighting follow Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990); Kuwait’s small military is overrun by Iraq’s much larger ground forces. Many Kuwaiti military units flee to Saudi Arabia rather than fight the Iraqis. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007] The invasion is such a surprise to the Kuwaitis that the Emir and the royal family barely escape with their lives. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996; Wilson, 2004, pp. 98]

Over 100 Americans are trapped in the US Embassy in Kuwait City. Perhaps 2,000 Americans are hiding from Iraqi soldiers throughout the capital city, and at least 115 are already in Iraqi custody, essentially being held as hostages. Iraqi forces bring a number of Americans, mostly oilfield workers, to Baghdad, where they are put up at local hotels. The Iraqis do not allow the “freed” Americans to leave the hotels or meet with US Embassy officials. It is clear that though the Iraqis call them “guests,” they are hostages. Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad, learns to his dismay that his superiors in the US are similarly reluctant to consider the Americans as hostages, arguing that if US officials begin calling them hostages, then the Iraqis will treat them as such. Perhaps Iraq is holding the Americans only until their control of Kuwait is complete, and will release them. But, except for the release of a single American girl (see Early August, 1990), the Iraqis release no hostages. Embassy personnel succeed in rounding up around 100 Americans, mostly workers for the Bechtel Corporation, and housing them in the confines of the Embassy building. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 117-118, 126]

American journalists, with their camera and sound crews, begin pouring into Baghdad, causing an enormous strain on the US Embassy personnel. The embassy personnel quickly decide to house them in the US Information Service Cultural Center across the street from the embassy, where the journalists will not interfere with embassy’s operations but can still file their stories and images using the embassy’s direct telephone and satellite connections. By and large, the embassy staff, from Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson on down, welcome the media representatives, because, as Wilson will later write, “we thought it important that the story be covered as fully and openly as possible from Iraq.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 118]

Joseph Wilson and Saddam Hussein, during their August 6 meeting. [Source: Joseph Wilson / New York Times]Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad (see July 31, 1990 and August 1-2, 1990), is admitted to an unexpected and impromptu meeting with Saddam Hussein. Wilson, determined not to let Hussein get the better of him in front of the Iraqi photographers present at the meeting, refuses to do anything that could be construed as bowing to Hussein (an effect Hussein is known to strive to create with his “guests”) and is careful not to laugh for fear a picture could be taken out of context by Iraqi propagandists. As Wilson will later recall, “It dawned on me that the last thing in the world that I wanted to be beamed around the world was a picture of me yukking it up with Saddam Hussein.” Hussein proposes a solution to the Iraq-Kuwait conflict, involving the US giving its blessing to Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait (see August 2-4, 1990) and in return promising to provide cheap oil to the US from Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil fields. He also promises not to strike against Saudi Arabia unless that country allows itself to be used as a launching pad for a strike against Iraq. If the US reacts militarily to the invasion, Hussein says, then the US will be responsible for the “spilling of the blood of ten thousand soldiers in the Arabian desert.” Wilson will later write, “There it was then, the carrot of cheap oil coupled with the stick of dead American soldiers.” Wilson, in turn, presses for Hussein to allow foreign citizens in general, and American citizens in particular, to leave Iraq immediately (see August 4, 1990). Hussein asks if such a request indicates that the US is planning to launch its own military response; Wilson responds that he knows nothing of any such plans, but that he intends “to be here so long as there is a role for diplomats to play in resolving this situation peacefully.” The meeting adjourns with nothing being agreed upon; Wilson has no power to negotiate on behalf of the US, Wilson does not trust Hussein to keep any such bargains, and most importantly, the US has not shown any indication of any willingness to allow Hussein to stay in Kuwait. [Vanity Fair, 1/2004; Wilson, 2004, pp. 118-123]

The US military’s ‘Desert Shield’ logo. [Source: Eagle Crest (.com)]The US officially begins “Operation Desert Shield” in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990) and Saudi Arabia’s request for US troops to defend it from possible Iraqi incursions. The first US forces, F-15 fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, arrive in Saudi Arabia (see August 5, 1990 and After). [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996; American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000] The US opens a military response to the Iraq invasion as much to defend Saudi Arabia as to defend Kuwait. Both the US and Saudis fear that Iraq will occupy Saudi Arabia’s Hama oil field near the countries’ mutual border, one of its largest. Between its own oil fields and those of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia which Iraq could feasibly control, Iraq would control the majority of the world’s oil reserves. Iraq would have difficulty in successfully occupying the Hama oil field, because of the large amount of inhospitable desert terrain it would have to cross to reach the field, and because of the likelihood of intense air strikes from the US-equipped Saudi Air Force. President Bush says the operation is “wholly defensive” in nature, a claim quickly abandoned. The US deploys two carrier groups and two battleship groups to the Persian Gulf, and deploys numerous Air Force units. Eventually, half a million American troops will join the other US forces. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson and the other US diplomats in Baghdad learn that the Iraqis have taken about 115 Americans as hostages (see August 4, 1990) and are placing them at strategic sites they consider most likely to be targeted by US air and ground strikes—in essence using the hostages as human shields. Two thousand Americans still remain trapped in Kuwait City, where Iraqis are, Wilson will write, “terrorizing the population.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 126]

The US diplomats at the embassy in Baghdad, led by Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, hold a long and sobering discussion of the possibilities confronting them in the days and weeks to come. They are well aware of the grim fate meted out to several Americans during the 1958 revolution (see 1958), and realize that they, too, may be killed in the near future. As Wilson will later write, they ask themselves: “If, in all likelihood, we were going to die anyway, did we want to go meekly to our deaths delivering useless diplomatic notes to a brutal regime, or did we want to be defiant, treating the Iraqi actions as the outrages they were? We opted for the latter code of conduct. That decision—to stand up and confront Saddam [Hussein] at every opportunity—set the tone at the embassy from that moment on.” Wilson will add: “Months later, after I’d left Baghdad, a psychologist at the CIA told me that the only way to deal with a personality like Saddam’s is to stand up to him: to be defiant, antagonistic, and intimidating. We had not had the benefit of such CIA wisdom back in August, but our instincts were still on the mark.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 126-127]

The New York Times prints a long article based on a highly classified memo written about US diplomat Joseph Wilson’s meeting with Saddam Hussein two days before (see August 6, 1990). Neither Wilson nor anyone else at the US Embassy in Baghdad leaked the memo, Wilson will aver; he believes the memo was leaked by a senior government official in Washington. The Iraqis are understandably furious at the public revelation of the events of the Hussein-Wilson meeting. When the Iraqis demand to see the US response to Hussein’s proposals as advanced in the meeting, Wilson is instructed by a senior State Department official to tell the Iraqis to “turn on CNN” for the American reply. CNN is broadcasting footage of American C-5 transport planes filled with military equipment bound for Saudi Arabia; the US is beginning its deployment of troops to the region in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (see August 7, 1990). [Wilson, 2004, pp. 124-125]

Iraq announces that it intends to “annex” Kuwait, in essence forcing it to become a part of Iraq instead of a sovereign nation. Kuwait City is renamed al-Kadhima. The next day, the US will declare the annexation null and void. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996; Wilson, 2004, pp. 126] Iraq plans for part of Kuwait to become a portion of Iraq’s southernmost Basra province, and the rest is to be Iraq’s 19th province. Iraq’s claim that Kuwait is part of Iraq is rooted in history as well as current events. For centuries, Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman Empire province of Basra, which included much of modern-day Iraq. Iraq has not recognized Kuwait’s sovereignty since 1899, and the border between Iraq and Kuwait has never been clearly defined to both sides’ satisfaction. According to Iraqi officials, the annexation of Kuwait merely rights a historical wrong. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007] The US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, will protest that when she gave Iraq indications that the US would not oppose Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (see July 25, 1990), she did not expect Iraq to take “all of Kuwait” (see Late August 1990).

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein declares a “jihad,” or Islamic holy war, against the US. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996] Hussein uses the language of the Afghani Islamist mujaheddin in issuing his jihad. Though he does not expand the jihad to cover Saudi Arabia (the US’s strongest ally in the region), he accuses Saudi Arabia of being the illegitimate guardian of two of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, charges long echoed by both the Islamist militants in Afghanistan as well as in Iran. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

Nine days after Iraq invades Kuwait (see August 2, 1990), the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton creates a front organization, “Citizens for a Free Kuwait,” almost entirely funded by Kuwaiti money. Hill & Knowlton’s point man with the Kuwaitis is Craig Fuller, a close friend and political adviser to President Bush (see July 23, 1986). Veteran PR reporter Jack O’Dwyer will later write, “Hill & Knowlton… has assumed a role in world affairs unprecedented for a PR firm.” [Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002; Public Relations Watch, 6/3/2007] Citizens for a Free Kuwait is one of about twenty PR and lobbying groups formed by the Kuwaiti government. Other American PR firms representing these groups include the Rendon Group and Neill & Co. Citizens for a Free Kuwait will spread a false story of Kuwaiti babies being killed in their incubators by Iraqi troops, a story that will help inflame US public opinion and win the Bush administration the authority to launch an assault against Iraq (see October 10, 1990). Another public relations and lobbying effort includes a 154-page book detailing supposed Iraqi atrocities, entitled The Rape of Kuwait, that is distributed to various media outlets and later featured on television talk shows and in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. The Kuwaiti embassy also buys 200,000 copies of the book for distribution to American troops. Hill & Knowlton will produce dozens of “video news releases” that are offered as “news stories” to television news broadcasters throughout America; the VNRs are shown on hundreds of US television news broadcasts, usually as straight news reports without being identified as the product of a public relations firm. [Public Relations Watch, 6/3/2007]

A sketch of a 1990 US Army GPS system similar to that used by the Air Force. [Source: Department of the Army]Shortly after Iraq invades Kuwait (see August 2, 1990), a US Air Force official arrives at the Baghdad airport with a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver in a briefcase. He is driven to the US Embassy. At the embassy, he takes a position in the courtyard and takes a single GPS reading. He then flies to the US, where he gives the GPS receiver to CIA officials in Langley, Virginia. The CIA determines the precise GPS location of the embassy from the Air Force officer’s reading. That set of grid coordinates will serve as the center of the large and sophisticated coordinate system used to designate military strike targets in and around Baghdad during Operation Desert Storm (see January 16, 1991 and After). [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

US diplomat Joseph Wilson meets with Iraq’s Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and asks what Iraq intends to do with the thousands of US citizens in Iraq and Kuwait if the US Embassy decides that most of its personnel should leave. Wilson wants to ensure that no more Americans will be captured and used as hostages (see August 4, 1990, August 8, 1990, and August 17-23, 1990). Wilson is particularly concerned about the 2,000 or so Americans in Kuwait. Aziz says that Iraq will honor its obligations under the Geneva and Vienna Conventions, which specify that innocent civilians must be allowed to leave a war zone and not be held against their will. Wilson informs his State Department superiors in Washington of Aziz’s promises and recommends that every American be moved out of Kuwait as soon as possible—if not out of the region entirely, then at least to Baghdad. Wilson has little confidence in Aziz’s assurances, calling the minister a “lying son of a b_tch” in his communique. Wilson later learns that the decision goes all the way to President Bush, who decides to follow Wilson’s recommendation and order all but the ambassador, Nat Howell, and a skeleton staff to abandon the Kuwait embassy. The US wants to keep the Kuwait embassy open to show that it does not accept Iraq’s claim that Kuwait is no longer a sovereign state and therefore does not warrant its own diplomatic representation from other countries. By August 24, around 120 Americans, many of them diplomats and staffers from the Kuwait embassy, and their families, arrive at the US Embassy in Baghdad. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 135-137]

Saddam Hussein inquires about the health of young British hostage Stuart Lockwood, a scene broadcast on Iraqi television and shown worldwide. [Source: BBC]Iraqi officials announce that their forces will hold the citizens from any country threatening Iraq as hostages until the threats are ended. According to US diplomat Joseph Wilson, currently holed up in the US Embassy in Baghdad with his fellow diplomats, staffers, and at least 100 Americans hoping for protection from Iraqi depredations, the Iraqi announcement ends the fiction that Iraq is holding these citizens as “guests” (see August 4, 1990 and August 8, 1990). Still, Saddam Hussein tries to maintain the fiction for the press; in what Wilson will describe as “one notorious television appearance,” Hussein ruffles the hair of a seven-year old British boy, Stuart Lockwood, and asks if he had had his milk that day. Wilson will write, “The scared look on Stuart’s face, and his parents’ equally frightened expressions, chilled viewers worldwide.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 133-134; NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

President Bush authorizes the first call-up of US military reservists for service in Operation Desert Shield (see August 7, 1990). The first active duty tours are for 90 days, but will be extended to 180 days in November 1990. [American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000]

Iraqi officials break their promise to allow the 120 or so Americans who have recently arrived in Baghdad from Kuwait (see August 17, 1990) to leave the country. Ranking US diplomat Joseph Wilson is furious. He storms into the Iraqi Foreign Ministry and, failing to find Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, leaves a message for the minister calling him a liar (he substitutes the word “prevaricator” when the Iraqi protocol official suggests using a less inflammatory term). Wilson and his Baghdad embassy colleagues turn their attention to getting the Kuwaiti embassy staffers and their families out of the country, with first priority going to the women and children. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 138]

Iraq abruptly announces that foreign women and children are free to leave the country, effectively releasing them as hostages (see August 17-23, 1990). Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad, believes the release was in part precipitated by a humiliating news report from CBS’s Dan Rather. The Egyptian ambassador to Iraq had met earlier with Wilson, and discussed the need for the international community to heighten its propaganda campaign against Saddam Hussein. He noted that a statue of Hussein had recently been erected in Arab Knight Square in Baghdad, replacing a statue of an Arab warrior on horseback. At the same time, Iraqi police had forced businesses around the country calling themselves “Arab Knight” to change their names, telling them “there is only one Arab knight in Iraq and you are not it.” Since Hussein wants to be known as the Arab Knight, the Egyptian ambassador says, maybe the world should point out that true Arab knights do not hide behind the skirts of women or behind little children. Wilson liked the idea and passed it on to Rather, who filed a story containing the insult on August 22. On August 25, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher accused Hussein of “hiding behind the skirts of women.” Wilson will later write, “While we could not confirm that our campaign to humiliate Saddam was responsible for this decision, we were sure that our general strategy of confrontation (see August 8-9, 1990) had contributed to it.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 134-135]

Iraqi officials claim to have found a memorandum summarizing the November 1989 meeting between CIA Director William Webster and Kuwaiti head of security Brigadier Fahd Ahmed Al-Fahd (see November 1989). According to a Washington Post article, when Kuwait’s foreign minister is confronted with the document at an Arab summit, the minister faints. Iraq cites this memorandum as evidence of a CIA-Kuwaiti plot to destabilize Iraq both politically and economically (see May 28-30, 1990). Both CIA and Kuwaiti officials call the meeting between Webster and al-Fahd “routine,” and claim the memorandum is a forgery. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

Shortly after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990), US ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie is confronted with transcripts of her July meeting with Saddam Hussein, where she told Hussein that the US had “no position” on Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait, a statement that Hussein apparently took as tacit US permission to invade its neighbor (see July 25, 1990). A British reporter asks Glaspie, “You encouraged this aggression—his invasion. What were you thinking?” Glaspie replies, “Obviously, I didn’t think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait,” to which the astounded journalist asks, “You thought he was just going to take some of it? But how could you? Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed, he would give up his Iran [Shatt al Arab] goal for the ‘whole of Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be.’ You know that includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as an historic part of their country!” When Glaspie refuses to answer, the journalist continues, “America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay—that the US would not oppose a grab of the al-Rumalya oil field, the disputed border strip and the Gulf Islands—territories claimed by Iraq?” Again, Glaspie refuses to respond, and is driven away in a limousine before she can refuse to answer further questions. [New York Times, 9/19/1990] Speculation has always been rampant about why Bush, who formerly considered Hussein a staunch ally against Iran and Islamist influences in the Middle East, suddenly turned on his former ally. Author and investigative producer Barry Lando has a partial reason. Lando will write in 2007, “One of the reasons was [British prime minister] Margaret Thatcher, who had a talking to him. She told him he had to act like a man and react. But it was also the fear that Saddam would take over Kuwait, and then have a much stronger position in the world oil market. That really scared George Bush…. At that point, he totally turned around. They began calling the man who had been almost a de facto ally a few months earlier, a man worse than Hitler. And Bush started shipping thousands of American troops to the Gulf.” [Buzzflash (.com), 2/23/2007]

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research logo. [Source: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research]A team from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research arrives in the Persian Gulf region to work with “Desert Shield” personnel in handling stress and other psychological issues. [Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, 1/17/2008]

Reverend Jesse Jackson. [Source: Yann Gamblin / Corbis]What ranking US diplomat Joseph Wilson calls the “celebrity statesman tour” begins this month, with lawmakers and personages from all sides of the political spectrum visiting Iraq. Wilson notes that these visits, as well-meaning as they are, violate US and UN sanctions on non-accredited US citizens meeting with Saddam Hussein, and, in his opinion, help “create an illusion of legitimacy for the dictator.” Wilson will later write, “They would be photographed sitting attentively next to him, would make some inane antiwar comments to the camera and, as a reward, Saddam would bestow a few hostages on them (see August 17-23, 1990), enabling them to claim that they had been on an errand of mercy.” Wilson names as some of the visitors former attorney general and antiwar activist Ramsey Clark, former Texas Governor John Connally, sports icon Muhammad Ali (already visibly suffering from Parkinson’s disease), former British Prime Minister Edward Heath, German Prime Minister Willy Brandt, and Yusuf Islam, the musician formerly known as Cat Stevens (and whom Wilson misidentifies as Yousef Ibrahim). Wilson calls the visits “well-intentioned but misguided… a violation of international sanctions, and… dangerous, as Saddam had clearly demonstrated his penchant for taking hostages.” On the other hand, each hostage released into the custody of a celebrity is one more American safe from harm, so “we applauded each new release as we continued to press for the safe departure of all Americans.” Wilson and his staff decide to “be as supportive as possible; after all, even if the visitors were in technical violations of American law, they were our citizens and, as such, were legitimate beneficiaries of whatever consular support we could provide.” Wilson is particularly taken with one visitor, American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, whose stature and aplomb upstage even Hussein. Wilson is impressed that Jackson’s insistent and even confrontational tactics win the freedom of twenty Americans. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 145-146; Yusuf Islam, 9/28/2007]

The Pentagon, citing top-secret satellite images, claims that some 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks are gathering on Saudi Arabia’s border in preparation for an attack. But two commercial Soviet satellite images of the border area, taken at the same time, obtained by Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, show only an empty desert. “The bulk of the mighty Iraqi army, said to number more than 500,000 in Kuwait and southern Iraq, couldn’t be found,” Newsday reports. [St. Petersburg Times, 1/6/1991; Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002; Los Angeles Times, 1/5/2003]

As tensions escalate between the US and Iraq, Iraqi officials circulate a note to all the embassies in Baghdad, directing them to register all of the civilians in their care with the authorities. Failure to comply can result in execution, the note implies. Such registration can only be done in person at Iraqi governmental offices; Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad, knows that bringing American citizens in for registration may well result in those Americans being taken hostage. He is housing some 60 Americans at the ambassador’s residence for their protection. He will later write: “It was clearly a way for the Iraqis to replenish their stock of hostages. The choice, theoretically, was either to turn over Americans or to defy the note and risk execution.” Instead of making the choice, Wilson uses the order to publicly defy the Iraqis. He schedules a press conference and has a Marine make him a hangman’s noose. Wearing the noose, he tells reporters that if Saddam Hussein “wants to execute me for keeping Americans from being taken hostage, I will bring my own f_cking rope.” The press conference, like all of the embassy press conferences, is off the record, but journalists release the story anyway. A garbled, erroneous version from a French news outlet has the Iraqis planning to hang Wilson by sundown. Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, angered and embarrassed by the press coverage, attempts to dress down Wilson that evening, but Wilson refuses to back down. Instead, the Iraqis withdraw the request. Soon after, President Bush sends Wilson a cable lauding his courage and his outspokeness (see November 29, 1990). [Wilson, 2004, pp. 153-154; Unger, 2007, pp. 311] Conservative columnist Robert Novak co-writes a piece about Wilson that says, “He shows the stuff of heroism.” Novak will later reveal the covert CIA status of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as an act of political retaliation (see July 14, 2003). [Wilson, 2004, pp. 153-154]

’Nayirah’ testifying before Congress. [Source: Web Fairy (.com)]An unconfirmed report of Iraqi soldiers entering a Kuwaiti hospital during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990) and removing newborns from their incubators causes a sensation in the US media. The rumor, which later turns out to be false, is seized upon by senior executives of the PR firm Hill & Knowlton, which has a $11.9 million contract from the Kuwaiti royal family to win support for a US-led intervention against Iraq—the largest foreign-funded campaign ever mounted to shape US public opinion. (Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the firm should have been held accountable for its marketing campaign, but the Justice Department fails to intervene.) The firm also has close ties to the Bush administration, and will assist in marketing the war to the US citizenry. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002; Independent, 10/19/2003; Public Relations Watch, 6/3/2007] Hill & Knowlton uses a front group, “Citizens for a Free Kuwait” (see August 11, 1990), to plant the stories in the news media. Congressional Hearings - Hearings on the story, and other tales of Iraqi atrocities, are convened by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, chaired by Representatives Tom Lantos (D-CA) and John Porter (R-IL). Reporters John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton will later characterize the caucus as little more than an H&K-funded sham; Lantos and Porter are also co-chairs of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, a legally separate entity that occupied free office space in Hill & Knowlton’s Washington, DC offices. The star of the hearings is a slender, 15-year old Kuwaiti girl called “Nayirah.” According to the Caucus, her true identity is being concealed to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her or her family. Sobbing throughout her testimony, “Nayirah” describes what she says she witnessed in a hospital in Kuwait City; her written testimony is provided to reporters and Congressmen in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. “I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital,” she tells the assemblage. “While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where… babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.” [Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002; Los Angeles Times, 1/5/2003; Public Relations Watch, 6/3/2007] The hearings, and particularly “Nayirah’s” emotional tale, inflame American public opinion against the Iraqis (see October 10, 1990 and After) and help drum up support for a US invasion of Iraq (see January 9-13, 1991). Outright Lies - Neither Lantos, Porter, nor H&K officials tell Congress that the entire testimony is a lie. “Nayirah” is the daughter of Saud Nasir al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US. Neither do they reveal that “Nayirah’s” testimony was coached by H&K vice president Lauri Fitz-Pegado. Seven other “witnesses” testify to the same atrocities before the United Nations; the seven use false names and identities. The US even presents a video made by Hill & Knowlton to the Security Council. No journalist investigates the claims. As author Susan Trento will write: “The diplomats, the congressmen, and the senators wanted something to support their positions. The media wanted visual, interesting stories.” It is not until after the war that human rights investigators look into the charges. No other witnesses can be located to confirm “Nayirah’s” story. Dr. Mohammed Matar, director of Kuwait’s primary care system, and his wife, Dr. Fayeza Youssef, who runs the obstretrics unit at the maternity hospital, says that at the time of the so-called atrocities, few if any babies were in incubator units—and Kuwait only possesses a few such units anyway. “I think it was just something for propaganda,” Dr. Matar will say. It is doubtful that “Nayirah” was even in the country at the time, as the Kuwaiti aristocracy had fled the country weeks before the Iraqi invasion. Amnesty International, which had supported the story, will issue a retraction. Porter will claim that he had no knowledge that the sobbing little girl was a well-rehearsed fabricator, much less an ambassador’s daughter. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporters will ask al-Sabah for permission to question his daughter about her testimony; he will angrily refuse. “Naiyrah” herself will later admit that she had never been in the hospital herself, but had learned of the supposed baby murders from a friend. In a subsequent interview about media manipulation during the war, Fitz-Pegado will say: “Come on.… Who gives a sh_t whether there were six babies or two? I believed her.” She will later clarify that statement: “What I meant was one baby would be too many.” [CounterPunch, 12/28/2002; Independent, 10/19/2003; Public Relations Watch, 6/3/2007]

The televised Congressional hearings of Iraqi atrocities against the Kuwaiti people, featuring the emotional testimony of a young Kuwaiti girl who tells the wrenching tale of Iraqi soldiers murdering Kuwaiti babies in their incubators (see October 10, 1990), sparks an outcry among both lawmakers and members of the US public. The story is later proven to be entirely false, but only long after the story, the product of an American public relations firm (see August 11, 1990), has had its desired impact (see January 9-13, 1991). The story is repeated over and over again, by President Bush, in subsequent Congressional testimony, on television and radio broadcasts, and even at the UN Security Council. Bush says that such “ghastly atrocities” are like “Hitler revisited,” and uses the images of “babies pulled from incubators and scattered like firewood across the floor” to excoriate Congressional Democrats reluctant to authorize the impending invasion. Author John MacArthur will later write, “Of all the accusations made against the dictator [Saddam Hussein], none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City.” American public opinion remains deeply divided about the necessity of a war with Iraq; the US Senate authorizes the war by a bare five-vote margin (see January 9-13, 1991). Journalists John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton will later write, “Given the narrowness of the vote, the babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush’s favor.” [Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002; Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002; CounterPunch, 12/28/2002; Public Relations Watch, 6/3/2007] In 1995, Bush’s National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft will say: “We didn’t know it wasn’t true at the time.… [I]t was useful in mobilizing public opinion.” [Christian Science Monitor, 9/6/2002]

George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney. [Source: Representational Pictures]President Bush, reeling from the Republican defeat in the midterm elections two days before, announces the deployment of 200,000 more troops around the Persian Gulf to augment the 250,000 already in place. Bush announces the deployment without consulting or advising Congress, a brush-off that angers many legislators who feel that Bush kept this from Congress in order to make sure it did not become an election issue. Bush is also weighing the advice of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who argues that the president does not need the authorization of Congress to wage war. [Dean, 2007, pp. 90]

Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Iraq, and his remaining colleagues in the beleaguered US Embassy in Baghdad decide to use the Thanksgiving holiday as a chance to remind the US that Iraq is still holding some 120 Americans as hostages (see August 17-23, 1990). He has proposed to his superiors in Washington that he make a high-profile visit to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to demand the release of the hostages, to be followed by an on-the-record press conference. Journalists would then join Wilson for Thanksgiving dinner at his home in Baghdad. He was told, “Nobody is going to tell you not to do it, but with the president traveling to Saudi Arabia to have Thanksgiving with the troops, the White House press office is concerned that you might step on the president’s story. That said, if you insist, feel free to go ahead. Just so you are aware of the concerns here.” Wilson and his colleagues decided to go through with the program. During dinner, CNN correspondent Richard Roth appears at Wilson’s home to announce that Iraqi officials have brought a contingent of American hostages to Baghdad for an on-camera Thanksgiving dinner. Does Wilson have a reaction? Roth asks. Wilson does indeed, and launches into a tirade, calling Iraq’s government “sadistic” for “parad[ing] hostages before the cameras as a propaganda tool while denying them access to their country’s embassy or consular officials.” Roth airs Wilson’s remarks on CNN. It is this impromptu condemnation of the Iraqi government, along with Wilson’s open defiance of Iraqi officials days before (see September 20, 1990), that prompts President Bush to send a laudatory letter to Wilson praising his courage and patriotism. (Wilson will give a copy of Bush’s cable to Roth, telling the reporter that he deserves the president’s praise as much as Wilson does.) [Wilson, 2004, pp. 160-161]

Admiral William Crowe. [Source: Associated Press]Admiral William Crowe, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, breaks with the Bush administration to come out for the continuation of US sanctions (see August 6, 1990) and against the proposed war against Iraq (see November 29, 1990). Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Crowe says: “[W]e should give sanctions a fair chance before we discard them.… If, in fact, the sanctions will work in twelve to eighteen months instead of six months, a trade-off of avoiding war, with its attendant sacrifices and uncertainties, would in my estimation be more than worth it.” Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Iraq, is dismayed at Crowe’s stance. The embassy had sent a report to Washington weeks before stating the opinion of the embassy diplomats and staff that sanctions were not having the desired effect; though they were eroding Saddam Hussein’s military structure, Wilson and his staff concluded, they would not in and of themselves force Hussein out of Kuwait any time soon. Economic sanctions would take years, perhaps a decade or more, to have the effect the US wants. “By that time,” Wilson will later write, “he would have looted the Kuwait treasury, found ways around the sanctions, and repopulated Kuwait with Iraqis so as to rig any vote on the future of the country. Sanctions would make the war easier, we believed, but not unnecessary, as long as our goal was to liberate Kuwait.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 161-162]

The United Nations passes Resolution 678. The resolution gives Iraq until January 15, 1991 to withdraw entirely from Kuwait (see July 25, 1990) and restore its national sovereignty. The US uses UN authority to build a “coalition” of nations to support its upcoming “Desert Storm” operation designed to repel Iraqi forces from Kuwait (see January 16, 1991 and After). 34 countries contribute personnel: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Spain, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. West Germany and Japan do not contribute forces, but they do contribute $6.6 billion and $10 billion, respectively, to the cause. While some countries join out of a sincere belief that Iraq must not be allowed to dominate the region and control Middle Eastern oil reserves (see August 7, 1990), others are more reluctant, believing that the affair is an internal matter best resolved by other Arab countries, and some fear increased US influence in Kuwait and the region. Some of these nations are persuaded by Iraq’s belligerence towards other Arab nations as well as by US offers of economic aid and/or debt forgiveness. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007] As with all such UN resolutions, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein rejects this resolution. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996]

President Bush sends US Acting Ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson a telegram lauding his heroism in standing up to Saddam Hussein (see September 20, 1990). Bush writes in part: “It is relatively easy to speak out from the safety and comfort of Washington; what you are doing day in and day out under the most trying conditions is truly inspiring. Keep fighting the good fight; you and your stalwart colleagues are always in our thoughts and prayers.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 154]

The ranking US diplomat in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, has a breakthrough in his relentless efforts to win the freedom of the 120 or so American hostages being held by Iraq (see August 17-23, 1990). Wilson meets an Arab journalist who has considerable influence in the Gulf region. He tells her that President Bush has already concluded, in his opinion, that the loss of the hostages as a result of an American invasion would be lamentable but not enough to deter military action against Iraq. Therefore, Saddam Hussein is “deluding himself” if he thinks the hostages will prevent the US from launching an attack against Iraqi forces in Kuwait. The other side of the coin, he tells the journalist, is that if something untoward does happen to the hostages, “American anger might be such that the president would be forced to go to war to avenge that mistreatment.” It is wholly to Hussein’s benefit to release the hostages, Wilson argues. Ten days after that lunch, Wilson receives the minutes from a meeting between Algerian Foreign Minister Sid Ahmed Ghozali and the US Ambassador to Algeria, Chris Ross, in which Ghozali echoes Wilson’s message almost verbatim. Wilson later writes, “I was certain that my contact had been speaking to other Arab leaders, and I saw that the thesis was gaining some traction. It would soon get back to Saddam from Arab interlocutors. It did not matter how many times I told the Iraqis the risks they ran—they expected me to say it. But when a fellow Arab said the same thing, it would have far greater impact.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 164-165]

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney testifies to the Senate on the upcoming invasion of Iraq (see August 2, 1990). Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) asks Cheney bluntly, “Now, barring an act of provocation, do you agree that the president must obtain the approval of Congress in advance before the United States attacks Iraq?” Cheney replies that he “does not believe the president requires any additional authorization from the Congress before committing US forces to achieve our objectives in the Gulf.” Cheney cites “more than two hundred” earlier instances where presidents have committed US forces into conflicts, “and on only five of those occasions was their a prior declaration of war. And so I am not one who would argue… that the president’s hands are tied, or that he is unable, given his constitutional responsibilities as commander in chief, to carry out his responsibilities.” Author John Dean will note in 2007, “Cheney had announced to Congress, in essence, that he did not need their authority to go to war.” Kennedy says of Cheney’s statement after the hearings, “We’ve not seen such arrogance in a president since Watergate.” [Dean, 2007, pp. 90]

After a meeting between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Jordan’s King Hussein, in which the king exhorted the Iraqi leader to free the 120 or so American hostages in Iraqi custody in order to avoid the possibility of US retaliation (see Late November, 1990), Hussein announces that Iraqi forces are now strong enough to withstand a US military strike, so the hostages may depart. After a chaotic few days of arranging transport for the newly released hostages, the number of Americans in Baghdad dwindle to fewer than ten: the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, and a few embassy staff members. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 165-166]

A British journalist tells US diplomat Joseph Wilson, one of the few remaining Americans in Iraq not affiliated with the media, that Iraqi officials have told him they are sure the US will not attack Iraqi forces. “The Iraqis have concluded that you are bluffing,” the journalist tells Wilson. “If you were serious, you wouldn’t keep beating your chests. You would let your actions speak for you.” Wilson’s subsequent advice to Washington to tone down the rhetoric goes unheeded. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 168-169]

The British MI6 establishes Operation Mass Appeal, a British intelligence mission designed to exaggerate the threat of Iraq’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in order to shape public opinion. [BBC, 11/21/2003] The operation plants stories in the domestic and foreign media from the 1990s through 2003. Intelligence used by Mass Appeal is said to be “single source data of dubious quality.” After the First Gulf War, the operation seeks to justify the UN sanctions policy. But after the September 11 attacks, its objective is to secure public support for an invasion of Iraq. The mission is similar to Operation Rockingham (see 1991-March 2003), another British intelligence disinformation program. [New Yorker, 3/31/2003; BBC, 11/21/2003; Press Association (London), 11/21/2003; Sunday Times (London), 12/28/2003] Former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter says in late in 2003 (see November 21, 2003) that he supplied Mass Appeal with intelligence while serving as UN chief weapons inspector from the summer of 1997 until August 1998 and that he met with British agents involved in the operation several times in both New York and London. [BBC, 11/21/2003]

Final diplomatic efforts between the US and Iraq to stave off US military action, represented by US Secretary of State James Baker and Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz respectively, end in stalemate. The United Nations has given Iraq until January 15, 1991 to withdraw its forces from Kuwait (see November 29, 1990). Iraq has no intentions of doing so. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996]

Faced with a lawsuit from 53 members of Congress demanding that he seek Congressional authorization before invading Iraq (see December 1990 and January 16, 1991 and After), President Bush asks Congress for such an authorization. His carefully worded request does not directly acknowledge the constitutional requirement that Congress authorize any military involvement by the US. After three days of what the New York Times calls “solemn, often eloquent debate,” both chambers of Congress approve the war resolution. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996; Dean, 2007, pp. 90-91] That authority is granted in part because of propaganda efforts mounted by Pentagon and Kuwaiti officials (see October 10, 1990). Even with such powerful persuasive tactics, the vote in the US Senate is 52-47 and 250-183 in the US House of Representatives, the closest such vote since the War of 1812. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]House Reminds Bush that Congress Retains Power to Declare War - The House passes another resolution, 302-131, informing the White House that Congress has the exclusive authority under the Constitution to declare war. Of this second resolution, author and former Nixon White House counsel John Dean will write in 2007, “The breakdown of the vote is telling: 260 Democrats and 41 Republicans along with one independent voted to support the wording and clear intention of Article I of the Constitution; 126 Republicans and 5 Democrats, all hard-right conservatives (including Tom DeLay, R-TX, and two would-be presidents of the United States, Newt Gingrich, R-GA and Duncan Hunter, R-CA) voted against the resolution.” [Dean, 2007, pp. 90-91]Gore Persuaded to Support War by Wilson - One of the few Democratic senators to vote for the war is Al Gore (D-TN). Gore takes time from the floor deliberations to speak with the ranking US diplomat in Iraq, Joseph Wilson, who once served as Gore’s aide (see September 5, 1988 and After). Gore grills Wilson for twenty minutes on the efficacy of US sanctions against Iraq (see August 6, 1990) and the necessity of US intervention to free Kuwait before returning to the Senate to vote for the authorization. Wilson later writes of his outrage that Gore’s fellow senator, Alan Simpson (R-WY), would accuse Gore during the 2000 election of being what Simpson will call “Prime Time Al” for the timing of his speech in favor of the war authorization. Wilson recalls Simpson as the senator who had been “practically on bended knee before Saddam in April 1990, reassuring the Iraqi dictator that he had a press problem and not a policy problem” (see April 12, 1990). Wilson will continue, “It was an outrage that a decade later he had the nerve to be critical of the one senator who had really taken the time to listen to an analysis from the field and factor that into his decision on what most senators agreed was one of the most momentous votes of their careers.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 163-164]

With US military strikes just days away (see January 9-13, 1991 and January 16, 1991 and After), ranking US diplomat Joseph Wilson shuts down the US embassy in Baghdad, hauling down the flag from over the embassy and taking it with him as he drives to the airport to leave Iraq. Wilson is the last American to leave Iraq before the invasion. He later calls it “probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to do.” He particularly worries about the loyal and hardworking Iraqis who, until today, worked for the embassy. They are now unemployed and likely to face retribution for working with the Americans. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 171]

One of the many air strikes launched against Iraqi targets during Operation Desert Storm. [Source: US Air Force]The US launches a massive air assault against Iraq in retaliation for that country’s invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990). The air assault begins the day after a UN deadline for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait expires (see November 29, 1990). F-117 Stealth bombers hit Baghdad with an array of high-tech bombs and missiles; many of the explosions are televised live, or on briefly delayed feeds, on CNN, which launches virtually 24-hour coverage of the air strikes. In the first 48 hours of the war, 2,107 combat missions drop more than 5,000 tons of bombs on Baghdad alone, nearly twice the amount that incinerated Dresden in World War II. 'Thunder and Lightning of Desert Storm' - US Army General Norman Schwarzkopf, chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), announces the beginning of hostilities by transmitting the following: “Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of the United States Central Command, this morning at 0300, we launched Operation Desert Storm, an offensive campaign that will enforce the United Nation’s resolutions that Iraq must cease its rape and pillage of its weaker neighbor and withdraw its forces from Kuwait. My confidence in you is total. Our cause is just! Now you must be the thunder and lightning of Desert Storm. May God be with you, your loved ones at home, and our country.” [US Navy, 9/17/1997]Initial Attacks Obliterate Iraqi Navy, Much of Air Force, Many Ground Installations - The attack begins with an assault of over 100 Tomahawk land attack missiles (TLAMs) launched from US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and attack helicopter strikes on Iraqi radar installations near the Iraq-Saudi Arabian border. The assaults destroy much of Iraq’s air defense and command-and-control capabilities. The missile assault is quickly followed by fighter, bomber, and assault helicopter strikes which continue pounding at Iraqi government buildings, power stations, dams, military sites, radio and television stations, and several of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. The strikes essentially obliterate the Iraqi Navy, and drastically cripple the Iraqi Air Force. (Between 115 and 140 aircraft and crews of the Iraqi Air Force flees to Iran over the course of the war, a move that surprises US commanders, who expected the aircraft and their crews to attempt to flee to Jordan, not Iran. The Iranians will never give Iraq back its aircraft, and will not release Iraqi air crews for years to come.) A US Navy review later calls the combined Navy-Marine air campaign, conducted in concert with US Air Force strikes, “successful beyond the most optimistic expectations.” The Navy later reports that “allied air forces dropped over 88,500 tons of ordnance on the battlefield.” [US Navy, 9/17/1997; NationMaster, 12/23/2007] Iraqi anti-aircraft counterattacks are surprisingly effective, downing around 75 US and British aircraft in the first hours of attacks. The US media does not widely report these downings, nor does it give much attention to the dozens of pilots and air crew captured as POWs. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]'The Mother of All Battles' - Five hours after the first attacks, Baghdad state radio broadcasts a voice identified as Saddam Hussein. Hussein tells his people that “The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun. The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins.” [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]US Embassy Helped Locate Targets for Air Strikes - Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the last American to leave Baghdad (see January 12, 1991), and his staff provided critical assistance to the US battle planners in choosing their initial targets. Over the months, Wilson and his staff developed a “hostage tracking system,” monitoring and recording the movements of the American hostages as they were transferred from site to site to be used as human shields in the event of a US strike (see August 4, 1990 and August 8, 1990). Wilson and his staff were able to identify some 55 sites that were being used around the country, presumably some of the most critical military and infrastructure sites in Iraq. Wilson gave that information to the Pentagon. He will later write, “I was gratified when several months later, on the first night of Desert Storm, long after the hostages had been released, many of those sites were ones hit by American bombs.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 141]

One of the US Army Patriot batteries deployed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia that destroyed Iraqi Scuds. [Source: US Army]Iraqi forces launch seven Scud missiles at targets inside Israel. US forces intercept one of the Scuds over Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, with a Patriot anti-missile battery. The Israeli government agrees to a US request not to retaliate with its own military strike against Iraq. Two days later, the Pentagon redeploys several Patriot batteries from their bases in Europe into the region. [American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000] This is the first of a number of Scud attacks by Iraq against Israeli targets. Many believe that Iraq’s intention in attacking Israel—announced before the war—is to draw Israel into the conflict and thus draw other Arab countries into the war in support of Iraq, particularly Jordan and/or Syria. Israel, pressured by the US, refuses to retaliate. The Scuds that are fired at Israel have been drastically modified to fly much farther distances than they were originally designed to do, and as a result they are wildly inaccurate. A common joke among US military and civilian personnel is: “How many Iraqis does it take to launch a Scud? Two: one to launch the missile and another to watch CNN to see where it lands.” [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

A NASA satellite photo of King Khalid Military City. [Source: NASA / Public domain]Czech and French units stationed near the Iraq-Saudi border report seven detections of chemical weapons—nerve and blister agents—in the vicinities of Hafar al Batin and King Khalid Military City (KKMC) in Saudi Arabia. [Illnesses, 7/29/1998] (KKMC is more of a military base than a city, built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the 1970s and 1980s to house US and Saudi troops. It is one of the central hubs of US air strikes into Iraq.) [NationMaster, 2005] None of the detections are reported as life-threatening, and none can be independently verified, though both the US Defense Department and CIA will later find the reports to be valid. [Illnesses, 7/29/1998; Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, 1/20/2008]

Blazing oil wells in Kuwait. [Source: US Department of Defense]Iraqi forces begin igniting an estimated 700 oil wells in northern Kuwait. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996; American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000] Smoke from the burning oil wells can be seen from space. [Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, 1/20/2008] One US soldier will later recall: “There were… days when the smoke [plumes] ‘hugged’ the ground and turned the sunlit, bright day into a dark of night. [We] traveled the ‘coastal highway,’ from Kuwait City down to Saudi Arabia… and the petroleum-thickened air was so impregnated that we choked on oil while breathing through our doubled-up scarves… We were forced to stop and clear the raw petroleum off vehicle windshields and our goggles constantly. At [times] on the highway the… air was so thick our vehicle headlights could not penetrate the air further than 10-15 feet, and Marine escorts were needed to walk… ahead of the vehicles to keep us on the highway.” It takes nine months of concerted efforts by the US and Kuwait to bring the oil well fires under control. Many military and civilian personnel will report long-term health problems as a likely result of exposure to toxins and particulates released by the fires. [Illnesses, 8/2/2000]

Melissa Rathbun-Nealy at a rally in her home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. [Source: Grand Rapids Public Library]During the fighting in and around Kharfji (see January 29-30, 1991), Iraqi forces capture the first US female prisoner of war. [American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000] The POW is later identified as Army Specialist Melissa Rathbun-Nealy, a driver with the 233rd Transportation Company. She and fellow driver Specialist David Lockett became lost and stuck in the sand while driving a heavy flatbed truck near the Iraq-Kuwait border; both are captured. [People, 2/18/1991] Both Rathbun-Nealy and Lockett will be released in March 1991, along with four other POWs. Interestingly, both soldiers are initially listed as “missing in action” instead of “prisoners of war”; the Defense Department will give no explanation for the decision to list them as MIA, though some believe it is to escape potential media embarrassment at having a female soldier captured by the enemy. Both Rathbun-Nealy and Lockett will report that their captivity was largely uneventful, and they were well treated. [POW Network, 11/8/2007]

US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney warns that the US will retaliate if Iraq uses chemical or biological weapons against US or coalition forces. Cheney may be implying the use of nuclear weapons. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996]

A US air and missile strike in Baghdad destroys three major bridges, but also kills around 400 civilians in a blockhouse being used as an air-raid shelter. Iraqi officials later confirm that the blockhouse also housed a military communications center, and may have been a military command center as well. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996; NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

President Bush rejects a peace plan proposed by Iraq and the Soviet Union. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996] This is not the only peace proposal from Iraq and its various friends and allies rejected by the US. The US insists on a full, immediate, and unconditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Iraq’s peace proposals contain various conditions, mostly involving the withdrawal of Syrian and/or Israeli troops from other Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]

An Army M-270 rocket system deployed in Saudi Arabia. [Source: US Army]After over a month of aerial and naval assaults against Iraqi forces (see January 16, 1991 and After), the US-led coalition launches a massive ground assault against Iraqi forces in Kuwait. [American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000] Battalions from the 11th Marine Division lead the assault by clearing Iraqi minefields in southern Kuwait placed to impede ground forces’ progress. [Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, 1/20/2008] A key component of the US strategy is the so-called “left hook” maneuver, based on General Ulysses S. Grant’s similar strategy in the 1863 Battle of Vicksburg. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996] The “left hook” is designed to sidestep a large contingent of heavily fortified Iraqi troops along the Iraq-Kuwait border, prepared to defend Kuwait City from an attack by US and coalition forces. General Norman Schwarzkopf, the US’s chief strategist, uses a small contingent of Marines to keep this larger Iraqi force busy while 250,000 troops land behind the dug-in Iraqi forces; one contingent sweeps north to attack forces around Basra, and the rest surprise the Iraqis along the border by attacking from the north. [Bard, 2002, pp. 280]

Demolished and disabled vehicles litter the ‘Highway of Death’ in the hours after Iraqi forces were slaughtered by US strikes. [Source: Public domain / US Department of Defense]Thousands of Iraqi soldiers retreating on two highways from Kuwait City, Kuwait, towards Basra, Iraq, are slaughtered by US forces on what is later called the “Highway of Death.” [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996] The so-called “Battle of Rumaylah,” or as some call it, the “Battle of the Junkyard,” is not a battle in the classic sense, as the huge losses of Iraqi soldiers and vehicles are contrasted with the loss of a single American tank, lost when an Iraqi tank explodes too close to it. Only one US soldier is injured. In the two separate but connected US assaults that make up the battle, at least 600 Iraqi tanks, armored vehicles, and trucks are destroyed or disabled; estimates of Iraqi personnel losses vary widely, but the losses are well in the thousands. Iraqi, Kuwaiti, and Palestinian civilians, including children, are caught in the heavy US assault as well as innumerable Iraqi soldiers. (Some believe the Kuwaitis and Palestinians were being taken to Baghdad to be used as hostages.) Most of the bodies are buried within hours, making it impossible to ascertain the number of dead. During the US assault, US tanks, using sophisticated thermal-imaging targeting, have little trouble sighting and destroying Iraqi tanks before the Iraqi units are even aware that they are being fired upon. [Time, 3/18/1991; New Yorker, 5/22/2000; Newsweek, 5/29/2000]Air Strikes - Initially, a force of retreating Iraqi armored units are bombed front and rear by US aircraft during the night of February 27-28, trapping the convoy between the centers of destruction. The remaining units are targets for later air strikes. Most of the vehicles—military tanks, trucks, and armored personnel carriers, as well as civilian cars and trucks—are destroyed. Five-Hour Air, Armor Assault - The March 2 attack on the Iraqi Republican Guard “Hammurabi” tank division is ordered by Army General Barry McCaffrey (the general who commanded the already-famous “left hook” maneuver days before—see February 23, 1991 and After), in response to what McCaffrey says is an attack on his forces with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). The decision surprises some in the Allied command structure in Saudi Arabia and causes unease among civilian and military leaders in Washington, who worry about the public relations ramifications of an attack that comes days after a cease-fire was implemented (see February 28, 1991). McCaffrey himself later calls the attack “one of the most astounding scenes of destruction I have ever participated in.” The “Hammurabi” division is obliterated in the assault. Criticism from Fellow Officers - Some senior US officers are not sure that McCaffrey’s unit, the 24th Mechanized Division, was in fact attacked; many senior US officers privately assert that McCaffrey’s five-hour assault was well out of proportion. (McCaffrey, later accused of war crimes by an anonymous but well-informed accuser, will be exonerated by an Army inquiry.) McCaffrey will assert that his troops were indeed attacked—an assertion backed by other field officers on the scene—and that he ordered the retaliation because had he not, his forces would have come under heavy attack by Iraqi armored units. Besides, McCaffrey will later say, the entire war was intended to be a one-sided affair: “We didn’t go up there looking for a fair fight with these people.” The whole war, one British commander said in earlier weeks, was “rather like a grouse shoot.” [New Yorker, 5/22/2000; Newsweek, 5/29/2000] One critic is the commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Unit, Lieutenant General James Johnson, who will later say: “There was no need to be shooting at anybody. [The Iraqis] couldn’t surrender fast enough. The war was over.” Johnson, whose unit is deployed near McCaffrey’s, will add, “I saw no need to continue any further attacks.” Explaining why McCaffrey ordered the assault on his own authority, Johnson will say that McCaffrey—widely perceived as CENTCOM commander General Norman Schwarzkopf’s favorite general—“does what he wants to do.” Lieutenant General Ronald Griffith, commanding the 1st Armored Division of VII Corps, will later say that many of the tanks destroyed in the assault were being transported on trailer trucks to Baghdad, with their cannons facing away from the US troops, and thus posing no threat. “It was just a bunch of tanks in a train, and he made it a battle,” Griffith will later say of McCaffrey. “He made it a battle when it was never one. That’s the thing that bothered me the most.” Major James Kump, the senior intelligence officer for the Army’s 124th Military Intelligence Battalion, is monitoring what he believes to be a routine retreat before McCaffrey’s units begin attacking the Iraqi forces. Kump will later recall: “I thought, I can’t believe what I’m hearing! There’s nothing going on. These guys are retreating.” Kump receives a large amount of electronic data indicating that McCaffrey is attacking a retreating force. “I had links to several intelligence systems—more than I can talk about,” he will later say. “And I’d have known if troops were moving toward us.… I knew of no justification for the counterattack. I always felt it was a violation of the ceasefire. From an integrity standpoint, I was very troubled.” McCaffrey’s orders will be questioned even by one of his own subordinates, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Lamar, the 24th’s operations officer. Lamar, who is in charge of the assault command post and who relays McCaffrey’s orders to the field units, will later say: “There was no incoming. I know that for a fact.” The battle is “a giant hoax. The Iraqis were doing absolutely nothing. I told McCaffrey I was having trouble confirming the incoming.” But, Lamar will recall, nothing he says matters. McCaffrey wants to attack. Private First Class Charles Sheehan-Miles, a gun loader in a 1st Brigade tank platoon, will later recall being sent to rescue an American unit under attack by Iraqi armored units. “We went up the road blowing the sh_t out of everything,” he will recall. “It was like going down an American highway—people were all mixed up in cars and trucks. People got out of their cars and ran away. We shot them.” Sheehan-Miles recalls shooting at least one person in civilian clothing. “My orders were to shoot if they were armed or running. The Iraqis were getting massacred.” Specialist 4 James Manchester, a member of the Scout platoon of the 27th Battalion of the 1st Brigade, will later call the battle nothing more than “f_cking murder.” Shortly after the attack, an interpreter for the 124th Military Intelligence Battalion interrogates a captured Iraqi tank commander who asks over and over: “Why are you killing us? All we were doing was going home. Why are you killing us?” After the battle, military analysts will pore over the battle films recorded by the Apache attack helicopters participating in McCaffrey’s assault. One of the analysts will later tell a reporter that the footage was clear: the Iraqi tanks were in full retreat and posed no threat to American forces. “These guys were in an offroad defensive position—deployed in a perimeter,” the analyst will recall. Some of the Iraqi tanks attempted to return fire once McCaffrey began his assault: “We saw T-72s in battle lines, firing away blindly in the air. They didn’t know what was killing them, but they were gamely shooting—knowing they would die.” Many officers on the ground will later describe actions by McCaffrey and some of his senior subordinates they believe are designed to provoke a response from the retreating Iraqis and thus provide an excuse to begin a counterattack. Massacre Factor in Decision to End Hostilities - Reporters are not allowed in the area, so no one is there to report on, or photograph, the actual assault or its immediate aftermath. But the area is heavily photographed in the following days, and the swath of destroyed, burned-out vehicles becomes at once a symbol of US military superiority and of Iraqi defeat. It is later cited as one of the factors in President Bush’s decision to accept Iraq’s surrender and cease hostilities. The decision enables the Iraqi Army to survive the war somewhat intact, and keeps Saddam Hussein in power. Bush will later explain: “If we continued the fighting another day… would we be accused of a slaughter of Iraqis who were simply trying to escape, not fight? In addition, the coalition was agreed on driving the Iraqis from Kuwait, not on carrying the conflict into Iraq or on destroying Iraqi forces.” Dehumanizing the Iraqis - Manchester will later tell a reporter: “I was as patriotic as they come. I was a gung-ho ass-kicking Commie-hating patriotic son of a b_tch. I hated the Arabs. We all did. I dehumanized them. Did the Iraqis commit war crimes in Kuwait? Did they retreat back into Iraq to commit war crimes against their own people? The answer is yes to both questions. But does that make March 2nd justified? There have to be limits, even in war. Otherwise, the whole system breaks down.” [New Yorker, 5/22/2000]

US forces enter Kuwait City, Kuwait, with the Army’s 1st Armored Division fighting the last major battle of the Gulf War against the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard, in an operation later dubbed the Battle of Medina Ridge. President Bush declares Kuwait officially liberated from Iraqi occupation. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996]

After three days of relentless ground assaults from US and coalition forces (see February 25, 1991), Iraq informally surrenders. Hostilities officially cease at 8:01 a.m. local time. [American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000] US Army forces begin surveying chemical and biological weapons storage units in their respective areas. [Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, 1/20/2008] Reflecting on the war, the former Deputy Chief of Mission to the US Embassy in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, will later write that the war had been necessary: “The Iraq invasion of Kuwait was a brazen case of armed robbery, pure and simple,” and nothing short of military intervention would end it. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 178]

The former Deputy Chief of Mission to the US Embassy in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, reflecting on the ramifications and consequences of the Gulf War as it comes to an end (see February 28, 1991), will later write: “The war… established the blueprint for the post-Cold War New World Order. For the first time since the Korean War, the world had engaged in a conflict sanctioned by international law. In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, America’s foreign policy establishment understood that the next generation’s war would not be of the World War II variety, with huge mobilizations of national assets and a fight for survival among the major powers; it would instead consist of small, bloody conflicts that would best be dealt with by a coalition of the willing operating under the mandate of the United Nations. Our challenge would be to ensure that the United States did not become the world’s policeman, a costly and enervating task, but rather used our power to mobilize coalitions and share costs and responsibilities. In my mind, Desert Shield and Storm were case studies of how to manage both the diplomacy and the military aspects of an international crisis. We were successful in obtaining international financing to cover most of the costs of the war, we were successful in putting together a coalition force with troops from more than twenty nations, and we were successful in obtaining an international legal mandate to conduct the war. It was, in every way, an international effort driven by American political will and diplomatic leadership.” Wilson agrees with President Bush and others that the US had been right not to drive into Baghdad and depose Saddam Hussein (see February 1991-1992, August 1992, and September 1998). The US-led coalition had no international mandate to perform such a drastic action, Wilson will note. To go farther than the agreed-upon mandate would alienate allies and erode trust, especially among Arab nations fearful that the US would overthrow their governments and seize their oilfields, or those of their neighbors. Wilson will observe, “The credibility that we later enjoyed—which permitted us to make subsequent progress on Middle East peace at the Madrid Conference in October 1991, and through the Oslo process (see September 13, 1993)… was directly related to our having honored our promises and not exceeded the mandate from the international community.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 178-179]

US soldiers destroy around 40 ammunition bunkers and 45 warehouses in various locations throughout Iraq and Kuwait. In one open-air location outside the Khamisiyah Ammunition Supply Point (nicknamed “the Pit” by American soldiers), 1,250 rockets are destroyed. UN inspectors will later determine that many of those rockets had contained chemical warfare agents. [Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, 1/20/2008]

The Defense Department announces the first troop withdrawals from Iraq and Kuwait, with the Army’s 24th Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Georgia, the first to depart. [American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000]

The United Nations Security Council passes Resolution 687. The resolution “[w]elcom[es] the restoration to Kuwait of its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and the return of its legitimate government.” The bulk of the resolution addresses Iraq, requiring that nation to destroy all of its chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons, as well as all of its ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers. The resolution says that Iraq’s compliance will represent “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons.” Other portions of the resolution require Iraq to pay war reparations to Kuwait, to honor its international debts, and reaffirm the Iraq sanctions already passed by the UN. The resolution also paves the way for the controversial Oil-for-Food program by taking charge of Iraq’s petroleum exports. On the UN Security Council, twelve nations vote for the resolution; one, Cuba, votes against it, and two, Ecuador and Yemen, abstain. [United Nations, 4/3/1991; UNDemocracy (.com), 4/3/1991]

Iraq officially accepts the terms of the negotiated cease-fire between its forces and those of the US-led “Desert Storm” coalition (see March 1, 1991). The cease-fire takes official effect five days later, on April 11. [American Forces Press Service, 8/8/2000]

President George H. W. Bush signs a covert “lethal finding” authorizing the CIA to spend a hundred million dollars to “create the conditions for removal of Saddam Hussein from power.” [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] The CIA forms the Iraqi Opposition Group within its Directorate of Operations to implement this policy. [Ritter, 2005, pp. 128] Awash in cash, the agency hires the Rendon Group to influence global political opinion on matters related to Iraq. According to Francis Brooke, an employee of the company who’s paid $22,000 per month, the Rendon Group’s contract with the CIA provides it with a ten percent “management fee” on top of whatever money it spends. “We tried to burn through $40 million a year,” Brooke will tell the New Yorker. “It was a very nice job.” The work involves planting false stories in the foreign press. The company begins supplying British journalists with misinformation which then shows up in the London press. In some cases, these stories are later picked up by the American press, in violation of laws prohibiting domestic propaganda. “It was amazing how well it worked. It was like magic,” Brooke later recalls. Another one of the company’s tasks is to help the CIA create a viable and unified opposition movement against Saddam Hussein (see June 1992). This brings the Rendon Group and Francis Brooke into contact with Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi (see After May 1991). The CIA will soon help Chalabi and Rendon create the Iraqi National Congress (INC) to further the goal of toppling Hussein. [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] Author and intelligence expert James Bamford will later say, “Chalabi was a creature of American propaganda to a large degree. It was an American company, the Rendon Group, that—working secretly with the CIA—basically created his organization, the Iraqi National Congress. And put Chalabi in charge basically.… From the very beginning Chalabi was paid a lot of money from the US taxpayers. The CIA paid him originally about 350,000 dollars a month, to Chalabi and his organization.” [PBS, 4/25/2007]

Joseph Cirincione. [Source: Takoma / Silver Spring Voice]Joseph Cirincione, an expert on proliferation issues and national security, is detailed by Congress to find out just how well the Patriot missile performed in combat during the Gulf War. George H.W. Bush told a group of Raytheon employees, who helped manufacture the Patriot missile system, that the system had performed admirably during the war: “Forty-two [Iraqi] SCUD [missiles] engaged, 41 intercepted.” (Some sources later cite Bush as claiming that the figures were 43 of 45.) Television viewers around the globe were familiar with video footage of Patriot batteries blazing away at the sky during the middle of the night; such images became icons of the technological success of the war. However, Cirincione finds a very different story for the Patriot. His investigations of Defense Department records shows that the Patriot actually only brought down two to four SCUDs in 44 intercept attempts, or about a 10 percent success rate. The video footage rerun so often by American news broadcasters was of Patriots exploding in midflight. Nevertheless, Congressional funding for the Patriot and other missile defense systems rose dramatically after the war. Pentagon Experts Knew System Faulty - Experts in the Pentagon admitted to Cirincione that they knew the Patriot system didn’t work as early as 1991, when it was deployed to Iraq. Cirincione tells a reporter, “Everybody thought that missile defense could work” after the erroneous reports of the Patriot’s success. “So it gave the whole program, theater and strategic missile defense, a new lease on life, and cost us billions of dollars more in research and programs that still haven’t proved to be viable.… The power of that television image, the power of that myth of the Patriot success, proved to be very powerful indeed. Studies and scientific inquiries alone can’t overcome the popular misperception.” Army Incensed with Findings - The Army is incensed by Cirincione’s findings, he will recall in 2004. “The Army insisted that they knew they had some problems with the Patriot, but it didn’t serve any purpose to make these public. We would just be aiding the enemy. And that they would take care of it in the course of normal product improvement.” Why did the Army so adamantly oppose Cirincione’s findings? “The Patriot is a multi-billion dollar system. There’s a lotta money involved. There’s a lotta careers involved.” Cirincione will say that the Army continued to claim that the Patriot was a success even after he presented them with his findings until 2001, when it finally admitted the Patriot’s poor performance. [PBS Frontline, 10/10/2002; Carter, 2004, pp. 52; CBS News, 6/27/2004]

A container leaking an unknown but potentially dangerous substance is reported at a Kuwaiti girls’ school in Kuwait City. [Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, 1/20/2008] The container is a storage tank that is initially shown to contain mustard agent and phosgene. The report causes a brief media sensation in the British and US press. Later, more intensive analysis of the data by British inspectors shows that the tank contained no chemical warfare agents, but instead contained a substance known as inhibited red fuming nitric acid (IRFNA). The US Defense Department will confirm those reports. [Illnesses, 3/19/1998]

Iraqi National Congress logo. [Source: Iraqi National Congress]Over a period of four years, the CIA’s Iraq Operation Group provides the Iraqi National Congress (INC) with $100 million, which the organization uses to set up training camps and propaganda operations in Northern Iraq. [Christian Science Monitor, 6/15/2004; Ritter, 2005, pp. 128] During this time span, INC leader Ahmed Chalabi allegedly misuses a lot of the funds. “There was a lot of hanky-panky with the accounting: triple billing, things that weren’t mentioned, things inflated.… It was a nightmare,” a US intelligence official who works with Chalabi will say in 2004. [Newsweek, 4/5/2004] Chalabi refuses to share the organization’s books with other members of the INC, and even with the US government itself. According to a former CIA officer, “[T]hey argued that it would breach the secrecy of the operation.” One night, government investigators break into the INC’s offices to do an audit. They find that although the books are in order, many of the group’s expenditures are wasteful. [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] Chalabi spends much of his time in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Robert Baer, a CIA officer who is also working in Iraq, later recalls: “He was like the American Ambassador to Iraq. He could get to the White House and the CIA. He would move around Iraq with five or six Land Cruisers.” Hundreds of thousands of dollars flow “to this shadowy operator—in cars, salaries—and it was just a Potemkin village. He was reporting no intel; it was total trash. The INC’s intelligence was so bad, we weren’t even sending it in.” Chalabi tries to portray Saddam Hussein’s regime as “a leaking warehouse of gas, and all we had to do was light a match,” Baer says. Chalabi, at certain points, claims to know about Iraqi troop movements and palace plans. But “there was no detail, no sourcing—you couldn’t see it on a satellite.” [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] In her 2007 book Fair Game, former CIA analyst Valerie Plame Wilson, an expert on Iraq’s WMD programs, describes Chalabi as “Machiavellian,” and blames him for sending “dozens of tantalizing but ultimately false leads into the CIA net.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 106-107]

Many experts consider President Bush’s decision not to invade Baghdad and overthrow Saddam Hussein (see January 16, 1991 and After) as wise and prudent, avoiding putting the US in the position of becoming a hostile occupying force and, thusly, avoiding the alienation of allies around the world as well as upholding the UN mandate overseeing the conflict. However, many of the neoconservatives in Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s office have different views. Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and Zalmay Khalilzad are among those who view the “failure” to overthrow Hussein as what author Craig Unger will call “a disastrous lost opportunity.” Unger will reflect, “Interestingly, in what critics later termed ‘Chickenhawk Groupthink,’ the moderate, pragmatic, somewhat dovish policies implemented by men with genuinely stellar [military] records—George H. W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft, and Colin Powell—were under fire by men who had managed to avoid military service—Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, and Khalilzad.” (Secretary of State James Baker tells Powell to watch out for the “kooks” working for Cheney.) In some ways, the criticism and counterproposals from Cheney and his followers amounts to another “Team B” experience similar to that of 16 years before (see Early 1976, November 1976 and November 1976). Wolfowitz, with Libby and Khalilzad, will soon write their own set of recommendations, the Defense Planning Guide (DPG) (see February 18, 1992) memo, sometimes called the “Wolfowitz doctrine.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 115-117]

The New York Times headline on March 8, 1992. [Source: Public domain]The Defense Planning Guidance, “a blueprint for the department’s spending priorities in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union,” is leaked to the New York Times. [New York Times, 3/8/1992; Newsday, 3/16/2003] The document will cause controversy, because it hasn’t yet been “scrubbed” to replace candid language with euphemisms. [New York Times, 3/10/1992; New York Times, 3/11/1992; Observer, 4/7/2002] The document argues that the US dominates the world as sole superpower, and to maintain that role, it “must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992; New York Times, 3/8/1992] As the Observer summarizes it: “America’s friends are potential enemies. They must be in a state of dependence and seek solutions to their problems in Washington.” [Observer, 4/7/2002] The document is mainly written by Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who hold relatively low posts at this time, but become deputy defense secretary and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, respectively, under President George W. Bush. [Newsday, 3/16/2003] The authors conspicuously avoid mention of collective security arrangements through the United Nations, instead suggesting the US “should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992] They call for “punishing” or “threatening punishment” against regional aggressors before they act. [Harper's, 10/2002] Interests to be defended preemptively include “access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to US citizens from terrorism.” The section describing US interests in the Middle East states that the “overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve US and Western access to the region’s oil… deter further aggression in the region, foster regional stability, protect US nationals and property, and safeguard… access to international air and seaways.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992] Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) will later say, “It is my opinion that [George W. Bush’s] plan for preemptive strikes was formed back at the end of the first Bush administration with that 1992 report.” [Newsday, 3/16/2003] In response to the controversy, the US will release an updated version of the document in May 1992, which stresses that the US will work with the United Nations and its allies. [Washington Post, 5/24/1992; Harper's, 10/2002]

After a two-year investigation, Ahmed Chalabi is convicted in absentia and sentenced by a Jordanian military court to 22 years of hard labor and ordered to return $230 million in embezzled funds from his crimes connected with the Petra Bank. The 223-page verdict charges Chalabi with 31 counts of embezzlement, theft, forgery, currency speculation, making false statements, and making millions of dollars in bad loans to himself, to his friends, and to his family’s other financial enterprises in Lebanon and Switzerland (see June 1992). [Guardian, 4/14/2003; Newsweek, 4/5/2004; Salon, 5/4/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004; Christian Science Monitor, 6/15/2004]

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), headed by Masud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by Jalal Talabani, meet in Vienna along with nearly 200 delegates from dozens of Iraqi opposition groups to form an umbrella organization for Iraqi dissident groups. [Federation of American Scientists, 8/8/1998; New Yorker, 6/7/2004] The event is organized by the Rendon Group, which has been contracted by the CIA to organize the wide spectrum of Iraqi dissidents into a unified movement against Saddam Hussein. Rendon names the group the “Iraqi National Congress” (INC). The CIA pays the Rendon Group $326,000 per month for the work, funneled to the company and the INC through various front organizations. [ABC, 2/7/1998; CounterPunch, 5/20/2004; Rolling Stone, 11/17/2005Sources: Unnamed former CIA operative] Thomas Twetten, the CIA’s deputy directorate of operations, will later recall: “The INC was clueless. They needed a lot of help and didn’t know where to start.”
[New Republic, 5/20/2002; Bamford, 2004, pp. 296-297] Rendon hires freelance journalist Paul Moran and Zaab Sethna as contract employees to do public relations and “anti-Saddam propaganda” for the new organization. [SBS Dateline, 7/23/2003]

Frank DeGeorge, inspector general for the Commerce Department, concedes that the department’s officials altered 66 export licenses for Iraq prior to turning them over to congressional investigators. The export licenses had been changed from “vehicles designed for military use” to “commercial utility cargo trucks.” [Covert Action Quarterly, 1992]

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney gives a speech to the Discovery Institute in Seattle defending the Bush administration’s decision not to enter Baghdad or overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War (see January 16, 1991 and After). Cheney says that because of Hussein’s “shrinking power base” in Iraq, the fact that he does not control the northern or southern portions of his country, his all-but-destroyed national economy, and the UN sanctions, “his days are numbered” as Iraq’s dictator, so there was no need to overthrow him. “I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We’d be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.… All of a sudden you’ve got a battle you’re fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques.… Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq.… And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don’t think you could have done all of that without significant additional US casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn’t a cheap war. And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we’d achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/29/2004; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/29/2004; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 171-172] While Cheney publicly supports Bush’s decision not to go into Baghdad, privately he had urged Bush to invade the capital and overthrow Hussein (see February 1991-1992). According to Victor Gold, a former Bush speechwriter and coauthor of a novel with Cheney’s wife Lynne, Cheney’s private stance was far more aggressive than his public pronouncements. [Unger, 2007, pp. 182]

US Attorney General William Barr rejects the House Judiciary Committee’s request for him to appoint an independent counsel (see July 9, 1992), reasoning that the committee’s accusations are too “vague.” He informs them that the Justice Department will instead continue with its own “investigation” of Iraqgate. [Covert Action Quarterly, 1992]

Bernard Lewis. [Source: Princeton University]Princeton University professor Bernard Lewis publishes an article in the influential journal Foreign Affairs called “Rethinking the Middle East.” In it, he advocates a policy he calls “Lebanonization.” He says, “[A] possibility, which could even be precipitated by [Islamic] fundamentalism, is what has late been fashionable to call ‘Lebanonization.’ Most of the states of the Middle East—Egypt is an obvious exception—are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common identity.… Then state then disintegrates—as happened in Lebanon—into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions, and parties.” Lewis, a British Jew, is well known as a longtime supporter of the Israeli right wing. Since the 1950s, he has argued that the West and Islam have been engaged in a titanic “clash of civilizations” and that the US should take a hard line against all Arab countries. Lewis is considered a highly influential figure to the neoconservative movement, and some neoconservatives such as Richard Perle and Harold Rhode consider him a mentor. In 1996, Perle and others influenced by Lewis will write a paper for right wing Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu entitled “A Clean Break” that advocates the “Lebanonization” of countries like Iraq and Syria (see July 8, 1996). Lewis will remain influential after 9/11. For instance, he will have dinner with Vice President Cheney shortly before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Some will later suspect that Cheney and others were actually implementing Lewis’s idea by invading Iraq. Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, will say in May 2003, just after the invasion, “The neoconservatives’ intention in Iraq was never to truly build democracy there. Their intention was to flatten it, to remove Iraq as a regional threat to Israel.” [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 330-337]

In the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, UN inspectors uncover evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program far more advanced than the US intelligence community had predicted. Disgusted by this and other intelligence failures (see Mid-1990 and Late December 1990), Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and his cadre of neoconservatives and hardliners in the Pentagon (see Late March 1989 and After) come to consider the intelligence community, and particularly the CIA, as, in the words of reporters Franklin Foer and Spencer Ackerman, “not only inept but lazy, unimaginative, and arrogant—‘a high priesthood’ in their derisive terminology.” [New Republic, 11/20/2003]

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